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After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Gohmert Offers Reasonable, Coherent Argument

Okay, just kidding. In an interview with Newsmax TV, Rep. Louis Gohmert delivered a long, rambling, bizarre diatribe blaming Obama for the shutdown and the impending breach of the debt limit, saying he’s a “Chicago thug” out to inflict as much pain on the country as possible.

“He’s been saying ever since the shutdown and before the shutdown that he’s willing to talk,” Gohmert told Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg on Tuesday. “But he will not negotiate on anything, and he’s the one who keeps bringing up the threat of default and that kind of stuff. You know, it’s ridiculous to have a president that is trying to inflict as much hurt on the American people as possible.”

“Do you believe that this president will let this country face the disaster that it will face if the debt ceiling — if we default?” Malzberg wondered. “Do you believe he will take it that far and inflict the pain to a much greater extent than he’s inflicting it now?”

“That’s a possibility when you look at what he has done so far,” Gohmert agreed. “They don’t mind seeing America suffer. And when you know — as I know you do — that we have enough money coming in every week to pay our — to keep from defaulting — now, we may have to keep some folks furloughed. Because as we know now, 94 percent of the [Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)] is non-essential. You know, we may have to ask some folks that are non-essential to stay home for a while longer.

“But there is no reason we should ever, ever default on our debts unless the president and the treasury secretary conspire to make us default,” he added.

The Texas Republican went on to insist that the Obama administration was spending more money than it was saving by closing monuments and national parks during the government shutdown.

“But we know he is willing to spend money just to inflict hurt,” he opined. “So, it’s hard to say what people like that would be willing to do. And I think it has more to do with Chicago thuggery. You know, Al Capone was willing to make people hurt if they didn’t go along with the proposals.”

I am struck by how similar this blaming of Obama for the shutdown and the debt ceiling standoff is to how an abusive husband operates. Remember, Congress controls the purse strings. The House can end the shutdown today and they can raise the debt ceiling today; they alone have the power to fix both problems. But they refuse to do it unless Obama gives up the central achievement of his presidency. And then they turn around and blame him for the result of their failure to pass the necessary legislation to fix it.

“I didn’t want to do it, baby, but you made me. I love you, but you have to stop making me beat you. If you’d just do everything I say, I won’t inflict any pain on you, but you make me do it.” Sounds familiar.

Look, to save the economy from the working poor getting subsidized healthcare insurance on open, public exchanges, the Republicans have to hold the economy hostage. They love it so much that they’re willing to kill it to save it from being killed. That’s just common sense.

I suppose it is possible that it costs more to shut down monuments than to keep them open, but I don’t know that is relevant. If the staff to keep them open are non essential and have to be furloughed, and the staff to enforce closures are not, then there is no choice. Of course, I don’t know if that i the case, but none of the people making the “Obama is closing things when he could keep them open” are even bothering to address that possibility.

“I heard just before I came, some senator from Arizona, a guy that liked Gaddafi before he wanted to bomb him. A guy that’s been to Syria and supported al Qaeda and the rebels. But he was saying today the shutdown has been a fools’ errand. And I agree with him, the president and Harry Reid should not have shut this government down.”

The end game for them and the rest of the 1%ers is when enough people fall to the bottom of the rung (dying in the streets or surviving by eating out of garbage cans, or both) that there is only one way out: 1789 redux.

“No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law” – US Constitution, Article I, Section 9, clause 7.

The House refused to compromise on the budget, throwing a childish tantrum after failing 43 times to undo the Affordable Care Act. Without authorization from Congress, the Treasury cannot write any checks. As a result, many functions of government are shut down in a desperate effort to reduce the hemorrhage of cash already in the government’s wallet. That cash will be gone in less than a week unless Congress acts.

How is any of this Obama’s fault? Is Congress unable to do their job without the President micromanaging them?

“The end game for them and the rest of the 1%ers is when enough people fall to the bottom of the rung (dying in the streets or surviving by eating out of garbage cans, or both) that there is only one way out: 1789 redux.-Usernames are smart”

‘Round here, we call that the “heads on pikes” solution. If only there were some ““coefficient” that estimated the level of wealth disparity that would trigger this result.

As for Gohmert? He’s just reciting the script his supporters expect of him. His job is to blame Obama for everything; whether or not he makes any sense isn’t terribly important to him or his constituents. Trying to engage him logically is an exercise in futility. If the tables were turned and a Democratic House tried this kind of ploy against a Republican president, it would be the Democrats’ fault. Gohmert and his people would see no contradiction and would think you were being obtuse for trying to convince them otherwise.

Why yes, I have spent some time trying to make sense of FreeRepublic. Why do you ask?

F [is for failure to emerge]“Clearly, this effect of the shutdown is OK. Parks, not so much. (When did these guys give a fuck about parks, exactly?)”
Parks and monuments are popular sites, and visible effects of the shutdown, even to those who aren’t effected by the shutdown’s effects on government programs for “Those People”.